bilge questions

years ago i owned a blue stripe 1988 sn 2001. selling that boat was one of the saddest days of my life. but finding a good deal on a better condition grey stripe 1988 years later was one of the best. i absolutely LOVE these boats. when i purchased the boat it still had the original holley on it that was in rough condition (lots of corrosion) and appeared to be dumping too much fuel on deceleration causing stalling and starting problems. the seller knew a new carb was needed so took a few hundred off the price. before i even put the boat back in the water i purchased a quickfuel m600 which went on with ease and needed zero tuning. the boat runs like a top! i also added an acme 542 recently which i love as well. the original federal prop was outdated but will serve as a good spare. but thats all irrelevant. the reason im here now is the bilge. the bilge was the only thing not working on the boat (aside from the carb problem) when i purchased it. not a big deal since the boat is never kept in the water overnight. but still bugged me. the manual pump button wouldnt stay pressed in at all and when i pushed in the automatic circuit nothing would happen. after looking at the pump i noticed the wires had been spliced a few times and some 2 of them were not connected. tried a few combinations of connecting them and nothing. next step. bought a new circuit button for the dash. installed. still nothing. i finally took the pump out completely and put the 3 wires (rule male 500 auto) on my truck battery and it started right up. so i knew the problem was somewhere in the wires. managed to find the 3 main wires coming through the bottom of the boat and started fresh with waterproof connectors to the main wires. problem solved! or so i thought. while the key is turned to the on position the pump works on both manual and auto. however. when the key is out of the boat and the auto circuit is pushed in, the pump doesnt come on. im starting to wonder if maybe when i reconnected the 3 wires, i mixed up the manual pump and auto pump wires. would this cause the pump to not work without key in the ignition turned to on...? just making sure im not missing something.

Make sure you have a good ground. Something that grounds direct to the engine block or the battery. Grounds can be elusive in a fiberglass boat.

Your comment about the wires looking to be spliced. The boat is 30 years old, it may be on its 3rd bilge pump by now.